On the face of it, it would appear that the link between genetically-modified crops, growth hormones in animals and obesity isn't that strong. Countries with relatively unadulterated food chains, like Australia, also have high and growing obesity levels.

Granted, I'm no scientist, but I don't think we can blame the "obesity epidemic" on a single cause like genetically-modified crops and growth hormones in animals.

This. You're rarely going to see 100% of scientific (wo)man-power spent on one topic and, really, that would be rather unscientific considering that you have to consider a problem from ALL angles, not just one.

Now you could argue that there should be more scientists studying the link between genetically-modified crops and obesity (I honestly have no clue how many are studying it at the moment, if any) but speaking as a scientist myself it's just not that easy to up and change your entire field of research overnight. These things take time and if the funding isn't out there it's going to make it infinitely more difficult. I should also add that the food issues are still tied to weight loss/gain itself and not the issue of maintenance, which is the focus of the leptin research.

Runningfromfat - Did you see the link to the article I posted (a few posts up) about leptin research, specifically that there is currently no likelihood that leptin will be marketed to prevent weight regain?

I saw that and it is depressing. Certainly doesn't mean that they should stop leptin research, it just means that they need to restructure how they do licenses. The cynic inside me tends to think that if the pharmacy companies have a new drug that they know they can market to the maintainers that they're going to push to find a way (and they certainly have the money to do so...). I have a hard time believing if they really do have the cure for weight regain that they won't find a way to push for new licenses. They'd certainly make a lot of money off of it...

I find that hard to believe too.

But the cynic inside me thinks that there's more money to be made from pushing the "lose-gain-lose-gain more" merry-go-round many dieters find themselves on - not to mention all the drugs to treat conditions associated with obesity such as diabetes.

Good point. Although... the leptin drugs, would they need to be taken once or over a lifetime? I mean... if it's something you need to take over a lifetime then they're sure going to make a lot of money.

They'd need to be taken over a lifetime.

See the question from M at the bottom of the article I linked to.

if someone lost weight, managed it to keep it off (through above and beyond diligent efforts), would their metabolic rate graduatelly increase over towards a similar rate as an always-normal weight person?

And the response from Dr Sharma:

@M: unfortunately, the ‘hypometabolic’ state appears to be for life - so ‘no cure’

I think this is one of the biggest myths in weight loss. It implies that overweight people are all too lazy, crazy, or stupid to use information appropriately. We can't be trusted to use our brains, because we're all looking for excuses and ways to stay fat.

I don't think excuses find people. I think people find excuses only if they're looking for them (and if there isn't one handy, they make one up - they don't need science to hand them the excuses).

And even the people who are looking for excuses, aren't doing so out of laziness, craziness or stupidity, but out of desperation. They've failed so many times, and only gotten fatter for their efforts that they're terrified of trying again, because it's always meant gaining more than was lost. They know that quitting makes more sense than dieting the way they've been taught to, because what they learned has only made them fatter, and when given the choice between quitting the diets and staying fat or continuing the diets and continue getting fatter, staying fat seems the best choice.




My personal experience has been the exact opposite of the "excuse theory."

Until I realized that I was not fat because I was making excuses, I was fat because what I was taught wasn't working. My problem wasn't laziness, craziness, or stupidity - it was a lack of the right knowledge.

All my life, I've been told "weight loss is easy, you just have to stop making excuses and DO it."

And I believed that crap, swallowing it hook, line and sinker.

Until I started reading all the research that so many people believe "just gives people excuses." And I realized for the first time that my suspicions had been correct, I wasn't lazy, crazy, or stupid. There were legitimate reasons that I found weight loss more difficult. It didn't make me lazy, crazy, stupid, or "bad," the cards really were stacked against me. It didn't give me an excuse to give up, it gave me the inspiration and motivation to work even harder (and not just harder, but smarter).

The traditional view of dieting didn't work for me, because I wasn't working WITH the science, I was working against it (working against my body). I thought I could MAKE it about willpower. When I realized my problem wasn't willpower, I started looking for the real problem and how to resolve it.

I'm still finding answers (not excuses), but I wish I (and more importantly, my doctors) had this information when I was 12, rather than at 45.

The hardest for me was accepting the research that supported carb restriction, as I'd always believed that low-carb diets were unhealthy, unsustainable and even dangerous. When my doctor recommended low-carb, I was skeptical, specially since he warned not to go too low, but couldn't tell me what was too low. It felt like the blind leading the blind (especially when he often told me that if I find something that works well to let him know, so he could pass on the information and try it himself - even though he's only a little overweight).

"The End of Overeating" is a book often accused of "giving excuses," but for me it inspired an epiphany. It gave not only a plausible explanation for the demon I had always fought, it gave practical insight on how to fight the demon. Could weight loss really be as simple as learning to avoid the "addictive" flavor combination of fat/sweet/salty?

Of course not, but it gave me another tool in my arsenal.

And that's what the research really does. It just provides a tool. A tool that has power. People can use the tool for excuse building, but they can also use it as a tool for weight loss.

I think most people are smart enough to use the tools appropriately, especially if they have the opportunity to see other people doing so. But that's another serious problem with current weight loss culture. Obesity and even dieting are often considered taboo subjects that are inappropriate to discuss or demonstrate openly. It makes it very difficult for people to use the tools available, when they're not given many opportunities to see the tools put to use.

I don't think "excuses" are the biggest obstacle to weight loss. I think the biggest obstacle is the cult of silence - the fact that obesity is such a taboo subject that it so often can't be discussed openly and honesty (to the point that we're often supposed to pretend we don't see it in ourselves and others, and definitely aren't supposed to talk about it in polite conversation).

Our Biology is not our Destiny.

I agree that understanding Leptin levels is productive and useful, but the findings are generally quite negative and, for the moment, psychologically un-useful. The findings threaten our belief in ourselves - we think we will have to have a daily war with Leptin the rest of our live. Can we beat our own biology?

But that does not mean we have to throw up our hands because maintenance will be too difficult. Biology is not ALL that we are.

One problem I've noticed with Leptin studies is that they only take into account the hormonal production, etc. (I'm not a scientist), but the scientists fail every time to use a more productive interdisciplinary approach.

As de Beauvoir wisely said: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman."

For our purposes on 3FC, just remember that there are many factors outside our biology, factors that science misses.

Quite so. And I think we're all pretty adept at figuring out ways to outsmart our biology.

lol wow. I haven't been around for a while...I guess I should have anticipated so much discussion, which is wonderful, really. There's no right or wrong, hard and fast when it comes to weight loss or maintenance. the study itself is flawed for a number of reasons. i guess like many of you, i find myself searching for answers and at times struggling to keep myself in check. i have battled a few hard addictions in my life (crack, and nicotine, food too!). this past year has been the first year that i have actually done good to and for myself. some days i'm a superhero and i can do anything! other days (today) i can't stay out of the pantry and am lazier than imaginable!

i eat whole, i eat clean, i weigh and measure and track (spreadsheet) everything. i get up at 5 to lift weights and i come home at 4 to hit the stationary bike for an hour or run 6 miles plus. i spend saturdays planning, baking, researching...can i maintain this for life? the guilt i feel on days where i'm off plan. there have been more off days than on days these past couple months. the weight gain? maybe a couple lbs? i figure as long as i'm less than 130...but then, i want to be 115...i can't seem to fight the hunger anymore. i don't want to decrease my training for i see myself as an athlete...the trades off: to eat less and move less or eat more to move more?

i've come so far, why do i need to go further? but i want to be thinner...its never good enough!

and then there are the macros...i can never seem to get enough protein, i eat too many carbs...I'm ranting, but really, this is my life every day...

i'm afraid of letting go of the tracksheet of being like the norm. eat when i'm hungry, stop when i'm full, exercise when i feel the need. if i go about it intuitively, will i lose control entirely given what i know now? will i become a statistic? i cannot stop what i'm doing for i have worked too hard to stop now...viscous cycle. this 'study' that day was mere confirmation bias i guess?

to all you ladies, ncuneo, saef, redpanda, and everyone else- thank you for your posts. i don't comment or start anything very often, but read posts here often for support. i commend you for everything you do the motivation you have...it inspires me to keep on going. thank you.

I don't think the weight loss research results threaten our belief in ourselves, or that they are inherently useless or demotivating unless we assume so. If we view it that way, it becomes the reality. But it's not the research results that are negative, it's our interpretation of them - and we can change that.

For me, the "truth" has not been demotivating, just the opposite. I've never been afraid of doing the difficult or even the extraoridinary, but weight loss was never presented that way to me. Instead, from the time I was 5, everyone in my life was always telling me how easy weight loss should be and that if I weren't lazy, crazy, or stupid - I'd easily master it.

Every piece of advice I ever got was prefaced with "it's simple" or "it's easy" or "All you have to do is....."

Of course I felt like a moron, when I didn't find it that easy or simple.

I was an excellent student. I was willing to work hard to do the extraordinary. I finished highschool and college early. I got a bachelor's and then master's degree in psychology. I've worked while going to school, since I was 13, and I always worked more than 40 hours a week - working longer hours or a second job. (I wish I had known that my crazy schedule was killing me, or I might not have ended up on disability due to autoimmune disease and fibromyalgia which both may have been caused by the effects of chronic sleep deprivation).





I think most people can handle the truth, but we're not being told the truth. I think the deception and misconceptions that surrounds weight loss is far more difficult and damaging than unpleasant truths. People often feel like they're failing miserably at an easy task, when they don't realize they're actually succeeding, though slowly at a difficult task (and not even slowly, if they realized what the true, average pace of weight loss really is). We think "everyone else is doing so much better than I am."



Every time I quit weight loss, it was because I felt like I was failing. And yet I wasn't. Even my slowest rate of "failure" was good weight loss, I just didn't recognize it as such. I thought I was doing horribly, because I wasn't meeting my own and other people's expectations.

When I had a "small" weight loss (still far better than the national average), instead of congratulations, I would get consolation: sympathetic, sad smiles and comments such as "better luck, next week" or "at least you didn't gain" or other statements that made it clear that I was not succeeding.

It's ridiculous. If everyone knew and acknowledged how difficult weight loss really is, we'd celebrate wildly any time a person lost so much as a 1/4 lb.

We wouldn't give up when the weight loss slowed and became more difficult - because we'd expect it.

If we acknowledged how difficult weight loss and maintenance can be, as a nation, and as individuals we'd devote more resources to addressing the issue.


We wouldn't judge people so harshly for "needing help."

We'd be less ashamed to admit that we needed help, and to reach out for it.

We wouldn't feel like we had to hide "our shameful secret," because it wouldn't be so shameful if we all realized and acknowledged the difficult truths.